Previews: Blue Dragon
GDC 2007: We get our first sample of the English voice work.
By Garnett Lee 03/06/2007
In press meetings today at GDC Microsoft showed us an early build of the North American version of Blue Dragon. Creator Hironobu Sakaguchi personally led a brief guided tour that included a first sampling of the English voice work. While we expect the official announcements shortly, even at this early stage it is clear from what we heard that these are experienced professional voice actors. Nene, the main bad guy, sounded suitably menacing, while main character Shu's voice had a nice youthful yet firm inflection. Sakaguchi explained that while selecting who would do the voice work the developers gave a good deal of consideration to matching the Japanese intonation of the dialogue, and they continue to work on that as they refine each passage. In addition to the spoken parts, two songs from the original soundtrack will be translated as well.
Otherwise, the American version of Blue Dragon will be faithfully brought over unaltered from the game's Japanese release. Sakaguchi did take us through a couple of battles, though. Being able to see the enemies while adventuring, and the lack of a long loading screen when transitioning to the battle screen, integrates combat smoothly into the flow of the game.
During combat, the sequence of battle will feel familiar to Final Fantasy veterans as you select actions for each character from a tree of menus. For the most part these actions are carried out by the game's signature shadow characters, such as Shu's Blue Dragon. Almost like summons, they project from each character as a physical representation of their inner strength, and give the action a dramatic flair. Sakaguchi also demonstrated one of three shooting stages which have a very arcade-like feel. In this one, he manned the turret gun on Shu's ship while being chased through a long tunnel. Along with firing the gatling gun, he had a lock-on that launched guided missiles to take out weak spots on his pursuer.
The demo whet our appetite for Blue Dragon, but it looks like it will be a while before we get to satisfy our craving. The current plan aims for a late-August release, and, as in Japan, it will come on three discs. Microsoft also confirmed plans for follow-up downloadable content after the launch in three waves. These will ultimately include remixes of environments and events in existing dungeons, as well as an all new dungeon.
In the meantime, for more a more detailed look check out our preview of the imported Japanese version.